


Anyone But the Man in the Mirror

by Fwee



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Aftermath of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fwee/pseuds/Fwee
Summary: A man must face the consequences of his actions.  Or not.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Anyone But the Man in the Mirror

My hands were shaking so much the key nearly fell out of the lock. The gloves around my fingers were so tight that they creaked at the seams, but I managed to twist the knob, pushing the door open with my shoulder and stumbling inside.

The apartment was dark, a warm gust from the temperature difference drafting in with me. I kicked the door closed behind me and started stripping out of my too-tight clothes. My gloves clung to my fingers like sausage casings, and I had to resort to tugging with my teeth. Just the smell was unpleasant, but I managed to keep the worst of the blood away from my mouth.

I got all the way to the bathroom without turning on any of the lights, though my movements were an undignified hobble. I tossed the gloves in the bathtub, followed by my jacket and my choking-tight scarf, the latter of which had taken the brunt of the stains. Next, I tugged my pants down one inch at a time, scraping my legs with the rough fabric. It joined the rest in the tub.

The cold made my bare skin stretch tight over my bones, but even with the warmth of a fire, I would still be shivering.

I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out through my mouth. It came out wet and shuddering and it didn’t help.

The child. She had been young, the age that children played hopscotch and jump rope. The sound of her bones creaking, the tactile sense of it still echoed through my body. I looked down at myself- the blood had gotten through. My hands and chest, maybe my face. I didn’t want to check.

I stepped in the bathtub, over my clothes- ignoring the crunch-squish of blood and cloth and split seams- and pulled the shower curtain shut before unleashing a cold spray from the showerhead.

Maybe five or ten minutes later, I stepped out of the bathtub, feeling cold, wet, miserable, but more importantly, feeling human again.

Being human was painful.

It was a bit more bearable once I got the worst of the clinging water droplets off and draped a dry towel over my shoulders for the rest of it, tying another around my waist. I was still dripping as I left the bathroom, but I couldn’t bring myself to care much.

Still navigating by memory through the dark, I crossed the kitchenette and glanced at the phone. Two messages on the answering machine.

The first was a scam call, trying to get my personal information. I deleted it, and played the second.

_Doctor Methow? This is Gabrielle. Uh, Utterson. Gabrielle Utterson. From the hospital. Ahem._

There were a couple of seconds of silence. A lock of damp hair fell in front of my face.

_I just wanted to thank you, um. So, thanks? Ha… You didn’t have to help me out like you did, and I’m serious, it means a lot to me. You’re a good man, doctor. I mean that. Um, bye._

My arms were shaking, it felt like they were about to give out, but I gripped the lip of the counter so tight it hurt. Her words were like knives stabbing into my chest; that they were coming from such a kind, wonderful woman just made their jagged edges hurt my soul even more.

I couldn’t keep doing this. Patients, nurses, doctors, they deserved better than this. Than me. They didn’t realize what they were smiling at, complementing on a job well done, on lives saved. It made me feel sick, the taste of bile permanently on my tongue.

I left the answering machine and continued across my small apartment to the opposite wall. A small replica of the Last Supper hung above my reading chair, a reminder and a challenge.

The prick of my thumb on a sharp corner of the picture frame was nothing compared to the blasphemy of the act, the violation I committed. My blood smeared beneath Christ’s feet, a faint red streak that faded before my eyes in a matter of seconds, consumed by the sponge-like material I’d hidden within the painting. Following my mental map of the schematics my power had provided me, I tracked the chemical reactions with my eyes, though the mechanisms themselves were hidden behind the wall.

At last, there was a final squish as the locking mechanism retreated and I pushed a spot to the right of the painting. A seam appeared and a door swung inward, revealing the secret passage within. The dim red light from beyond cast everything in a demonic tint, as if my blood sacrifice had indeed brought me to my eternal punishment before my years were up.

It doubled my rent to keep my laboratory in the adjacent apartment, but it allowed me to have guests without worry. Not that I had company very often, of course, especially these days. I didn’t have the time. The passage adjoining my home and my workspace was short, and there was no secret mechanism on the other side; I walked directly through the doorless entryway, and headed straight for the kitchen counter- a dark mirror to my own, devoted fully to beakers, heating pads, and devices with names I didn’t know, though I knew their function perfectly well.

The low, red lighting and the sharp chill were both essential to my production. The chemical mixtures I made were finnicky, difficult things that could be turned from cure to poison with the slightest change or misstep. I would far rather turn in for the evening- or maybe night- instead of returning to my lab, but I needed to check on my work. I couldn’t afford to ruin a batch, or let it spoil; I was running up short on almost everything these days, and many of these chemicals weren’t found in everyday cleaning products.

Four mixtures were being prepared right now. One was still being processed in what I had labeled the oscillation chamber. Similar to a centrifuge, but with far more lasers and arcing electricity, and a simple check of the device reassured me that it was on track.

I turned next to the red and blue mixtures. They were both fed by an arrangement of beakers and tubes that mixed, vaporized, and filtered the base ingredients until finally little drops of vibrant red or blue fell into their respective containers.

The blue was what I had termed the Waters of Life. It was a great deal thicker than water, but when applied in small doses, it brought my patients and the other critical cases at the hospital increased vitality and strengthened their own bodies’ abilities to heal. It had saved dozens of lives, perhaps hundreds.

Its red twin was my guilty pleasure and my torture. I hadn’t intended to make it as a mixture, it was just the byproduct of the Waters of Life. I had tested it on a set of rats, and when their results agreed with the intuition of my power that it would do me no harm, I tried some of it for myself.

Red. Like the fresh-spilled blood, the oozing, pusling-

I took a deep breath. Let it out. It did not help.

My shaking hands grabbed a spongey dip-stick from a collection of them sticking out of a spare cup. The tip of it went into the current batch of the Waters of Life and came out dyed purple. That wasn’t good. The batch was going to spoil.

The fourth mixture was done, and just in time. I poured out a measure of the sticky brown liquid into a shot glass and knocked it back, resisting the urge to cough at the sweet, yet burning and prickling sensation heading down my throat and lingering on my tongue. Already, I could feel my heart pounding in my ears and my breaths coming quicker.

Hyper-coffee. A silly name that I’d given it in the haze of the first time I’d used it. I had been awake for the last eighteen hours, but with this stimulant in my body, it would feel like I was ready to run a marathon. I’d need the energy to save this batch of Waters. To save lives. I doubted I would be able to live with myself if I didn’t have that small measure to tip my karmic scales back into the black.

Despite my mind picking back up, my body was still weak. I could hold a glass of chemical solution and turn the knob on a Bunsen burner, but all the time I spent working the ache in my bones grew and grew.

Barely into my forties and I already felt like I was becoming infirm. We tend not to realize how badly we’ve lost our human functions until we get them back a bit. Energy, strength, even good looks, they all tend to drain away alongside youth, like sand through an hourglass. I wasn’t any worse off than most, but when you become used to having so much sand in the top half, it’s alarming how empty you feel when a chunk of it is drained away in minutes.

I needed a container for this preservative. I glanced around my laboratory, and my eyes alit on the red fluid. I could use it, clean out the beaker. My power worked just fine under its influence, I would still be able to compete the restoration of this batch. And I wouldn’t feel so… wrong, so gangly, like my skin was stretched over bones two sizes too big. No.

No.

 _No._ I wouldn’t. I’d had my fun, now I had to hide away that part of me and do my good work. I grabbed a wide, low bowl for the preservative. It wasn’t ideal, but all of my other containers were in use or were coated in residue I didn’t have time to neutralize.

Using a stirring rod, I combined the preservative with some powder from a makeshift waxpaper bag and watched it become a paste. I needed to heat it. The red-

No, control yourself Henry. God damn it.

I found another heating pad under the counter and plugged it in. A vapor rose from the paste, and soon a watery film was developing along the top. I wiped my brow clean of a combination of sweat and lingering water from my cold shower. It would take some minutes, but it would be ready before the Waters spoiled.

I had time. I did not turn around, deliberately kept the red liquid out of my sight. I was shaking now for entirely different reasons.

It was not addictive, per se. No more than love or chocolate. But it felt like lying to compare it to such wholesome distractions. While not directly intoxicating, the red liquid gave me an experience essentially equal to a drug high. One dose, and the world is so good, you won’t want to come down.

But you always do. And just because you wash the blood down your drain, it doesn’t mean it was never spilled. You’ll never get back what it took from you.

After what felt like an eternity, I had a fluid that I stirred into the Waters of Life, and a second dip-stick assured me that it had returned to a stable state. It would be ready by tomorrow, to cure a little girl’s fever or give a surgery patient an edge in recovery. Bringing life, spreading hope.

Staring down at the blue Waters, I also saw the red liquid. My own kind of hope, mixed with dread. Like going up a rollercoaster, knowing you’ll have to come down but fearing it with every primal sense.

My hands were on the red liquid’s beaker. The Waters required precise conditions, but their byproduct was ready as soon as it was produced. I could have some now, indulge a bit before sunrise. My next shift at the hospital was not until noon, so I wouldn’t be shirking my responsibilities. I would still be saving lives, still paying that debt. What was a little more?

With an act of Herculean will, I pulled my hands away, forced them down to my sides, and left my laboratory with hurried steps, like I was being chased by a ghost.

Out of that devilish red light and back in normal surroundings, I was able to again reclaim some of my humanity. The hyper-coffee would stay in my system for a few hours longer, at least, so I thought that I might as well do some work in the meantime. After dressing properly, of course.

I had a simple computer, not good for much more than keeping spreadsheets and sending emails. One new email, regarding a comment from one of the patients we’d had in our long-term care. She was a petty old woman- I felt bad for the thought as soon as it occurred. There was a chance that she would pull through, but even with my covert assistance with the Waters of Life, the odds were greater that she was currently lying in her deathbed. Her family had visited, at first, but those visits had petered off, and I had personally been asked- in a roundabout way- how long she would take up her family’s resources before she could be taken off of her support machines or moved to a home. She knew her situation, through eavesdropping or intuition, and she made her displeasure known often.

Physically, I had the energy to write out a thousand page treatise right now, but emotionally… it was nearly impossible to string together even a few sentences apologizing to this woman, reassuring her that we would take better care of her in the future.

I was not ready to return to the hospital. Less than an hour after what should be an energizing activity and I was already drained.

Maybe… just once…

\- - -

Mister Hyde strolled down Dickerson Street in the pale yellow twilight of pre-dawn. He was an easygoing and cheerful young man, vibrant and unrestrained. His coat was, ah, in the wash, but a generous drunk had offered to lend his. It had only taken a few beatings, so it was practically a gift. Just remembering the sensation of shoe sinking into flesh and knuckles meeting soft gut caused Mister Hyde to give a little hop of exited energy. His hands shook, eager to grab; the neck of a bottle, the neck of a man, or the waist of a woman, he wasn’t picky.

Dickerson Street was home to liquor stores and bail bond shops interspersed with rotting houses and rotten people. There was a woman on this street by the name of Samantha, and Mister Hyde intended to pay her another fruitful visit, keep her company while her husband was away.

Such poor, simple people down here. The women fell for his boyish charm with a single wink, and the men tended to fall to heavy blows if they objected.

A dog- some ugly mutt with a face that looked like it had been flattened by a clothes iron- stood with its snout against the fence of a house that Mister Hyde was passing and let out a series of percussive, vicious barks. Mister Hyde didn’t mind the soft, cuddly dogs that sensible people kept, but noisy slobbering beasts like this, he had no patience for.

Luckily this wasn’t an issue. Mister Hyde drew a thin vial from his pocket and unsealed the lid. Within was a murky purple fluid that he sloshed over the dog’s fence with a lazy motion of his hand. The smell of the fluid was something that dogs could not resist, and the fluid itself had hilarious results.

Mister Hyde was halfway down the block when he heard the meaty, hollow-sounding explosion, and his red eyes twinkled above his easy, cheerful grin.

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of the Fic Spoops event on the Cauldron Discord, as a gift for JoesALot. The prompt I chose was:  
> You become someone else entirely when you use your power. You can't help it, it's addictive, intoxicating. It's the downtime that's the worst. When you're yourself again.


End file.
